Catalyst (Breakthrough Book 3)

by Michael C. Grumley

  She stared at the massive wall of servers, humming quietly with its hundreds of green lights blinking away. The system was silently crunching data and looking for more relationships between already established language patterns.

  Alison looked away as she spotted a familiar face entering from the long hallway which connected the lab to their outdoor habitat. DeeAnn Draper smiled and looked curiously around the silent room.

  “Must be lunch time.”

  Alison grinned. “How’d you guess?”

  “I love predictable men.” DeeAnn smiled and watched the last of the children wave goodbye to the dolphins at the other end of the tank.

  Alison’s face took on a worried expression. She frowned and lowered her voice. “Are you still sure?”

  “Yes,” DeeAnn nodded. “I talked to Penny again this morning. They’re getting things ready at the Foundation.”

  Alison sighed. She understood why DeeAnn was leaving. The last month had been devastating for her, both emotionally and physically. She had embarked on a trip that began as a cause to help find a friend, only to end up nearly perishing herself. If it weren’t for Steve Caesare single-handedly saving her, she wouldn’t have been standing in front of Alison now.

  A serious brush with death had a habit of changing people. Alison understood that. And DeeAnn was one of them. She was alive and grateful, but she was done with adventure. She wanted nothing now but to live a simple life and to keep a single person safe. At least to her it was a person. And now, thanks to the IMIS system, she was absolutely sure about that.

  “So…”

  DeeAnn answered the question before she could finish. “We leave a week from Friday.”

  Alison pressed her lips together and nodded. She reached out and hugged DeeAnn. Over the last several months, the woman had become her mentor. An amazing woman in so many ways, who also had changed the world as much as Alison and her team ever had. The world just didn’t know it yet.

  “When are you going to tell the guys?”

  DeeAnn cleared her throat. “Today or tomorrow.” She managed another smile and glanced over Alison’s shoulder to see Dirk and Sally approaching. They glided smoothly up to the glass, watching the two women.

  Hello D Ann.

  She blinked a tear away and turned her smile to them. “Hi, Sally. Hi, Dirk.”

  Dirk stared at her, quizzically. D Ann sad.

  “A little.” DeeAnn still couldn’t quite get used to the way IMIS pronounced her name during a translation. According to Lee, the computers seemed to have trouble resolving a double “e” following the letter “d.” He didn’t understand it either, but the resulting pronunciation sounded more like “D-an” with a stutter. It wasn’t a big deal, but it always reminded her that a machine was ultimately behind the translations.

  Why sad.

  DeeAnn looked at Alison. “It’s a long story.”

  A loud buzz sounded from a monitor on the main desk. On the screen, a red error message displayed “unable to translate – story.”

  “It’s all right,” Alison said. She changed the subject. “Are you ready for food?”

  Dirk became noticeably excited once Alison’s words were translated into a series of clicks and whistles. Yes, food now.

  Alison turned to Sally, who was hovering slightly closer than Dirk. “How about you, Sally? Are you hungry?”

  The women heard their translation emitted from the underwater speaker, but Sally did not answer. Instead, she simply stared at them with her dolphin’s perpetual smile.

  “Sally?”

  Again the speaker sounded. After a long silence Sally finally replied.

  You leaving.

  Both Alison and DeeAnn’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “That’s…right, Sally.” DeeAnn answered. “How did you know that?”

  Why you leave?

  She frowned. How could she explain human emotion to a dolphin? It was a lot of things. Depression. Grief. Fear. Fear of somehow losing the purest thing she had ever known. And the love of finally feeling like a mother.

  “It’s…complicated.”

  The translation system buzzed again, unable to translate “complicated.”

  DeeAnn tried again. “It’s hard to tell you.”

  Her response was successful, but Sally didn’t answer. DeeAnn wasn’t sure whether that meant Sally was satisfied with the answer or not. Dolphins were not human, but even with her limited time speaking with Dirk and Sally, she was surprised at how human-like some of the communication felt. She wondered if much of what we considered unique human communication actually had more underlying commonalities with other forms than we knew.

  How you Alison?

  “I’m good,” she smiled. “How are you?”

  How you hurt?

  Alison glanced down at her bandage. “I’m getting better. Thank you.” Since they had returned, both Dirk and Sally were surprisingly curious of their injuries, including those of Chris and Lee. In fact, curious wasn’t quite the right term. They were more “attentive.” She was very touched by their concern and wondered if they were somehow feeling responsible. They may have been there when it happened, but they certainly were in no way responsible. Still, at times it left her with a distinct feeling of not only sympathy from the dolphins but a sense of empathy. It prompted her to ask them on multiple occasions if they had been hurt by the explosion. They insisted they hadn’t, but she wasn’t so sure.

  Where man?

  Alison gave Sally a sly grin. The dolphin was asking about John. He had spent a few days with her on the island after their return and spent some time talking to Dirk and Sally. Being an expert in technology, he continued to marvel at what they had done with IMIS. He was particularly impressed with the vests Lee and Juan designed. Clay warned her that it was just a matter of time before the world truly understood what she and her team had achieved. He warned her to prepare for that. The wave of publicity they’d received in Miami after the first breakthrough would be nothing compared to what was coming.

  Alison brushed her dark brown hair back behind an ear and answered Sally with a girlish chuckle. “John had to leave. He had to go home.”

  Sally made the familiar sound that IMIS had long ago identified as laughter. He come back.

  Alison sure hoped so. And maybe one day he’d be back to stay.

  Upstairs, Chris was sitting with Lee Kenwood and Juan Diaz in the computer lab. It was comfortably sized and well organized with metal tables along the wall. Neatly stacked shelves hung above them, filled with books, a wide range of computer parts, and mounds of magnetic backup tapes. Another larger table rested in the center of the room, illuminated by a bright lamp overhead. On the table lay a new vest with various cables strung to a nearby computer.

  Positioned in the middle of the vest was a large speaker with a much smaller microphone and digital camera embedded just a few inches above it. It was a replacement for the damaged unit that DeeAnn had brought back from South America. The system data had still been intact, but the small motherboard and processor were not worth salvaging.

  Chris watched Lee and Juan, patiently waiting for an answer on lunch. Both were distracted and staring intently at the monitor atop Lee’s desk.

  “I take it you’re still looking for the ghost in the system.”

  “It’s not a ghost,” Lee mumbled, moving the mouse and scrolling down.

  “Sorry, I mean “anomaly.”

  “It’s not an anomaly either.”

  “Riddle?”

  Juan turned and rolled his eyes while Lee, still facing forward, shook his head.

  “Come on! I’m joking.” Chris reached down and picked up a thick textbook from Lee’s desk. He thumbed through it. It advertised itself as the bible of computer algorithms. He believed it. The contents looked completely unreadable. “So what’s wrong exactly?”

  Lee took a break and turned his chair around. “It’s not that something is necessarily wrong. It’s more that something isn’t right.”


  “Is it part of the log problem?”

  “I think so.”

  The log problem to which Chris referred had in fact been a serious problem. Before their harrowing trip to the Caribbean, Lee discovered that the IMIS translations and the related video feeds were falling increasingly out of sync. The logs on the servers showed the frequency of errors to be increasing rapidly, leaving Lee worrying that thousands of new lines of computer code had seriously broken something.

  But after several sleepless nights, they discovered that IMIS was actually picking up on very subtle cues outside commonly recognized audible patterns. In other words, IMIS, a machine, was literally learning “nonverbal” communication.

  However, Lee and Juan couldn’t figure out how it was doing it. The vests were working almost too well.

  Chris listened as Lee explained what they were looking for. “So, you’re saying IMIS shouldn’t be as effective as it is?”

  “More or less.” Lee walked over to the table and held up their new vest. “When IMIS detects speech patterns from Dirk and Sally, it digitizes the signal and compares it to the database of words it has identified. When it has a match, it sends those translated words back through the speaker.”

  “And then in reverse order when we speak, right?”

  “Exactly. It works as expected with the dolphins because their language is mostly verbal. But that changes with a primate. Remember, DeeAnn says primate communication involves a lot of nonverbal communication like gestures and facial expressions.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, that’s where it’s not making sense,” Lee shrugged, looking at Juan. “IMIS is now picking up on nonverbal cues –– we’ve already established that. We’re not exactly sure on how that’s happening. But the more obvious problem is that while IMIS is picking up on those nonverbal cues, it has no way to convey them.”

  “That we can see,” corrected Juan.

  Chris squinted. “I’m not sure I’m following.”

  Lee thought for a moment. “Let’s say, for example, that a nonverbal cue IMIS picks up from Dulce is a shrug. It sees that from the video feed and matches it with the audio. But how does it convey that?”

  Now Chris understood. “I see. So while IMIS can observe a shrug, it has no way to actually transmit that gesture through the vest’s speaker.”

  “Bingo!”

  “Wow. That is weird.”

  “It shouldn’t be able to translate gestures in both directions, but it does. And we don’t know how.”

  Chris thought it over. He didn’t know the answer either. He had a suspicion but nothing concrete. It was a topic that Alison and he had discussed several times over the last couple years and were sure others had too. After years in the field, working with different creatures, they had eventually come to the same conclusion: there was something deeper and unknown happening when it came to communication. Especially in less cognizant brains. It was something many people had wondered about at one time or another. How animals knew so much instinctively, even things they had never been taught by a parent.

  Communication was the means to knowledge. But Chris and Alison, as well as other researchers, even veterinarians, were sure there was something else happening at a deeper level. A level that humans could not yet understand or measure.

  But maybe IMIS was doing just that.

  4

  Tiago Otero raised his head upon hearing a soft knock on the door. A moment later it was slowly pushed open and one of Otero’s assistants apologetically poked his head inside, interrupting the discussion.

  Otero displayed a pained expression and apologized to the man across the small table. With dark eyes topped by a head of stark white hair, the other man appeared older than Otero. He was dressed in the familiar dark green and brown fatigues of the Brazilian Army. Silently, he watched as Otero rose from his leather chair and followed the assistant out.

  They stood in the hallway, waiting for the door to click shut. When it did, Otero’s eyes became cold.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m very sorry to interrupt,” whispered the younger man. “But you wanted me to alert you if there was a problem.”

  Otero looked at him expectantly.

  “Lieutenant Russo has lost contact with his men.”

  Otero’s expression barely changed. He stared intently, twisting his lips in a manner that made his assistant nervous. Otero’s unpredictability was well-known, and his wrath legendary. It was a look his assistant had seen many times and hoped would never be directed at him. He was emphatically hoping that now.

  Otero had no friends. Only enemies and fearful acquaintances. Which is how he preferred it. Everyone nervous and afraid. Fear was the ultimate motivator. It stripped the strong of their confidence and made the meek obey. Otero scoffed at those who claimed power was about money. True power was about fear. Power through money was for the weak. Power through fear was for rulers.

  “Why didn’t he tell me himself?”

  “H-he’s still trying to reach them, sir.”

  Otero stared at him, thinking. The men his assistant referred to were the men Russo had sent to Florianópolis. It was a simple job. Easy for men of their skill.

  Miguel Blanco had given him the information he sought in São Paulo. Much more than he already knew. But Blanco had already talked to too many people. He had to be silenced.

  More importantly Blanco had killed one of Otero’s partners. Alves was a competitor –– a ruthless one –– but he was still part of the group. The echelon. A fellow oligarch who shared in the control of Brazil and most of South America. A man with far more wealth than most would ever know, and with it, certain protections.

  Otero had warned the man that Blanco, his head of security, could not be trusted. He wouldn’t listen. Instead, he trusted the young assistant he was sleeping with far too much. A common mistake of old, desperate men, clinging to the last remnants of their virility. It left him open, vulnerable. And Blanco pounced.

  Alves was foolish. But Blanco was still a dead man the moment he killed his boss. Now Blanco and his entire family would be made an example of, just like so many before him. Alves was shrewd. But Otero was unforgiving.

  And then there was Alves’ secret. He’d gotten close, within grasp of perhaps the greatest discovery of mankind. Too close, in fact. In the end, his eagerness had compromised his objectivity. No, not eagerness. The man was desperate. Desperate for it to be true. Desperate for it to be real. And when he found out it was everything he’d hoped for, the desperation had blinded him. It was a mistake Otero would not repeat.

  Florianópolis was one of the most desirable places to live in all of Brazil. Located just over four hundred miles south of São Paulo, the large island of Florianópolis was the Brazilian capital city and held the title for having one of the highest living standards in the country. With its local population composed mostly of Brazilian and European descent, the lighter subtropical weather made it one of the most sought after cities in which to reside. Assuming one had the resources, or perhaps had acquired the necessary resources.

  Steve Caesare examined the two bodies lying face down. Both were bound, but only one was still breathing. The other was dead. It wasn’t Caesare’s fault. The idiot wouldn’t stop. He wouldn’t give up until Caesare had no choice.

  He stepped back and leaned against the wall. If he thought his side hurt before, it was practically screaming after having to drag them both from the front room.

  The large closet they were now in wouldn’t keep them from being found. It would only delay it. And of course, the one would survive and eventually make it back to Otero. He hoped by then Blanco’s family would have heeded his warning and fled the country. He had a feeling the man named Otero wasn’t going to take this well.

  Miguel Blanco had been a bastard. A murderer with little conscience and even less remorse. Caesare knew that and wouldn’t lose sleep over him being dead. But in his experience, the families were usually innocen
t and largely unaware of their father’s or husband’s work when he was away from them. The family didn’t deserve it. And Blanco’s family didn’t deserve to be used as Otero’s calling card.

  Fortunately, Caesare had the advantage. At least this time. The thugs had shown up expecting to find Blanco’s wife and children unsuspecting and defenseless. Instead they found Steve Caesare. The timing was lucky but he was sure Otero would eventually find out who he was. While Caesare caught his breath, his lips curled into a wry grin and he decided to leave the man a message.

  He walked forward and pulled up the dead man’s pant leg, revealing a Fallkniven A1 survival knife strapped securely to his calf. Caesare unclipped the weapon and slid it out, momentarily admiring it. He then reached down and cut a shape into the back of the man’s brightly colored shirt. At least they had the sense to dress the part.

  If Otero were stupid enough to pursue Caesare, he should at least know who he was dealing with.

  He returned the knife and nodded approvingly. The shape was a trident, the symbol of the U.S. Navy’s Sea, Air, and Land teams –– more commonly known as SEALs.

  5

  DeeAnn Draper’s office was small and conservatively decorated. Just a single framed picture on the beige wall and another on her desk were all she had ever bothered to put up. It was a reflection of both her minimalistic lifestyle as well as the limited amount of time she actually spent in her office. Chris joked that it eerily resembled an advertisement out of an office supply magazine. But she did really like it there. She felt as much at home with Alison’s team as she had working at the Gorilla Foundation. And what Alison and her team had achieved was simply amazing.